Before I tell you of our visit to Buddhist temples, I must speak of the refuge from them which we found at Nurwara Eliya, sixty-two hundred feet above the sea. Colombo is only six degrees north of the equator. Here in January the sun casts hardly any shadow at noon, and the middle of the day is hot. Later in the year the heat is intense, day and night. So British officials combine with the rich of every tongue, and even with the missionaries, to make their summer quarters high up among the hills. We were transported thither on a narrow-gage railway, cut into the sides of precipices, running through tunnels, and so tortuous as to form a hundred horseshoe loops. The road seemed almost a miracle of engineering. But the views were beautiful beyond description. It was Switzerland without its ruggedness. It was Italy on the southern side of the Alps, as "Philip van Artevelde" best describes it: Sublime, but neither bleak nor bare Nor misty, are the mountains there; Softly sublime, profusely fair; Up to their summits clothed in green, And fruitful as the vales between, They lightly rise And scale the skies, And groves and gardens still abound, For where no shoot Can else take root, The peaks are shelved and terraced round. I am inclined to think that, of all the beautiful railway rides I have ever taken, this was the finest. From the rice-fields of the plains we passed upward through endless tea-plantations, where every inch of soil was preserved and utilized by the construction of artificial terraces. In the midst of these plantations, rubber trees were set at intervals. There were many instances when we looked down from our airy perch, on the edge of a precipice, at least a thousand feet, and saw ourselves on the side of a veritable amphitheater of mountains towering a thousand feet above us and covered with rows of tea-plants from the bottom to the top. This amphitheater was often two miles across, every foot of the ground minutely cultivated and a perfect sea of verdure. But, as we went up, the palm gave place to the pine; cold succeeded to heat; and to be at all comfortable at our hotel we were obliged to order fire in our rooms.